On 20 November 2007, in Kyiv, the 10th conference "Modern Information Solutions for Public Administration" took place. The event was organized by leading developers of software and specialized information technology solutions, Softline and Microsoft Ukraine. Conference participants shared their experience in implementing state-of-the-art information systems for automating and optimizing the work of government services, as well as in improving decision-making in the management of central and local government authorities of Ukraine. Modern technologies for communication within an organization and the principles of their use were also presented. The modern software solutions demonstrated by the participants fully meet the needs of government bodies and are intended to help build more advanced management systems.
Oleksandr Smyrnov, Vice President of Softline, spoke about Softline's new projects and solutions in public administration and their joint implementation with Microsoft products: "The unique offer from Microsoft and Softline is that together we provide a universal, full-featured technology platform for business process management that covers the full range of solutions, from the operating system and database to web-based specialized client applications. At the same time, we ensure unprecedented unification of both the user interface and the data exchange interface between all applications. As a result, users get accessible and ergonomic application design, and managers get maximum benefit from the low total cost of the entire information system."
According to Yurii Shkil, Microsoft Ukraine's manager for government institutions, the conference was meant to show IT specialists from government bodies that Microsoft products are not only the familiar Windows operating system and Microsoft Office System applications, but also a broad line of software products that cover the automation of virtually all areas of a modern government institution's activity. Successful projects to create elements of "e-government" around the world demonstrate the flexibility and reliability of Microsoft software, as well as the special importance of the public sector for the company.
Today, a pressing issue for Ukrainian government institutions is the introduction of new technologies into their information and communication systems. The concept of infrastructure optimization for enterprises and government services was presented by Viktor Tsykunov, Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft Ukraine. Under this concept, optimization is divided into four stages in which an organization moves from the simplest forms of information system management to more advanced ones. The final stages of development make it possible to minimize the cost of maintaining the IT infrastructure and to increase its efficiency and level of security.
The Director of Softline's Document Management Systems Department noted in his report that this year had been very productive for the development of the electronic document management system Megapolis.DocumentFlow. Softline specialists developed several subsystems of the product that will increase the benefits of using Megapolis.DocumentFlow in government authorities. The report "Megapolis.DocumentFlow: New Features" presented the following product innovations:
• Document Preparation subsystem;
• Web module for Megapolis.DocumentFlow;
• Integration of Megapolis.DocumentFlow with the Microsoft Reporting Services business analytics platform.
This year, the range of security services for protecting information against unauthorized access was expanded, with assurance level G-2, as confirmed by the relevant Expert Opinion.
Microsoft Ukraine also presented the concept of unified communications based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007. The new software platforms will allow government bodies to unite all communication channels: telephony, instant messaging, video conferencing and e-mail. The use of integrated communications significantly increases employee productivity and accelerates decision-making, which is very important for government institutions.
In a presentation on integrating application systems based on Microsoft BizTalk and SharePoint, Dmytro Pryimak, Lead Analyst at Softline, demonstrated the process of building a unified information space for an organization and explained how software systems in an enterprise evolve as new solutions are implemented. The speaker described Softline's experience in developing an integration platform based on Microsoft BizTalk and SharePoint to combine disparate programs from different vendors deployed in a single institution into one system.
Microsoft Ukraine gave a presentation on "Building Corporate Portals in Government Bodies", in which it presented its vision of organizing communications and electronic document management in the country's government institutions, as well as Microsoft technologies and products that can be used to implement them. The capabilities of the Office Open XML format were also demonstrated, thanks to which the country's government services will be able to significantly simplify and speed up information exchange.
In total, more than 110 representatives of central and regional government authorities of Ukraine took part in the conference. For Softline, this conference was a jubilee one: the 10th in its practice of cooperation with the public sector of Ukraine.